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What Shopping Malls Were Like in 1989

Photographer and filmmaker Michael Galinsky was 20 years old in 1989 when he and a friend decided to spend six weeks driving across the country, capturing images of mall life. They started in New York and ended in North Carolina.

“At the time, the mall was the new public space, the new community center where people would interact,” Galinsky told TODAY.com. He had no idea what those pictures would mean two decades later. “This was pre-Internet, pre-cellphone, there was smoking in malls, it was before the Gulf War. It was this weird moment in time where things were getting ready to change,” he said. “Sometimes when you’re taking pictures, you don’t know what is or is not going to be there 20 years later.”